


la fête de trop

by lqbys



Category: One Piece
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Drabble Collection, Existentialism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2020-02-26 13:16:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18717814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lqbys/pseuds/lqbys
Summary: Grandline swallows men whole and spits them back misshapen and poison-dripping: oceans become graveyards and Roger's treasure turns hearts into stone.(a collection of one piece drabbles and one shots,)





	1. Zoro/Luffy | Something In The Air

**Author's Note:**

> I write too much and never know where to post that shit or whether i feel like turning headcanons into chaptered fics or not so i found a compromise: imma just post whatever here :,) please mind the tags!! Rated Mature for now but i have pretty heavy stuff in my drafts. enjoy!

The ocean is a live thing. Zoro didn’t get it back then, when he was younger with a chest full of stone and old women with wrinkled skin and steel eyes told stories about the gods, fire and water embodied by entities, curses brought by the waves. He does, now. 

The ocean is a live, cruel thing. It does not forget, it does not forgive. 

Grand Line’s asleep. The whole ship is. Tonight watch is his, and soon, they’d reach Dressrosa. Eyes on the calm waves, Zoro thinks about all the shit they went through and all the shit that’s waiting for them on hazardous islands. Trafalgar Law and Monkey D. Luffy’s alliance, the worst of the worst generation against emperors and the world government. Who would’ve fucking thought.  


Used to be so, so simple—now Zoro lives constantly feeling the cold breath of death against his skin.

In the middle of the night, Luffy comes trotting on deck with a plaid around his slightly shaking shoulders. He doesn’t say anything at first—just plants himself next to Zoro and looks up to the blackest of skies. No questions asked. Zoro closes his again when he feels his captain’s head leaning against his shoulder. 

They’re comfortable in silence, always been. Back in the days—back to the beginning—it was Luffy and him and Grand Line. Silence is an old friend. 

“Can you feel it?"

“What?” 

“The atmosphere. There’s . . . something. Like . . .” 

A pause. Zoro’s ears are wide open though his eyes are not as he waits for something, anything. Particles bouncing, exploding. A warship blasting cannonballs from afar and chaos breaking out in the dead of the night. Admirals, shichibukais, celestial dragons, whichever, all. Donquixote. His Captain’s laugh—the real one—he hasn’t heard in days.

But—nothing.

He cracks his eye open. Luffy is still looking at him with those big round eyes of his, quiet and serious. No rare sight of him, these days: the New World sucked the soul out of men and Luffy was no exception. Zoro can see the weight of it all crushing him when the stars come out and the Sunny sails across the black gentle sea at night, when it's just the two of them and there is nothing to hide, no reason to pretend, no need to be strong. 

There's a crack in Luffy's eyes and—he yawns.

“You should sleep, captain,” Zoro murmurs. 

Luffy doesn’t sleep as much as he used to. There’s this unspoken rule of never letting their Captain on watch duty, alone or not. They need him sharp and full of vitality and sleep is one of those things the boy can’t do without: they’ve known sleep-deprived Luffy and they don’t want ever want to experience it again. Ever since the crew reformed, though—sleep has become a rare privilege. 

Zoro waits some more. The moon hovers over them like a silent watcher. There definitely is something in the air, but Strawhat doesn't acknowledge nor name it, so it really does not matter to his first mate.

“Naw, I'm good,” Luffy mutters, shoulders bouncing as he shrugs. “But I'm damn hungry. Man, this sucks.”

The night passes undisturbed. The sun rises and Luffy’s smile returns and life goes back to whatever semblance of normalcy they’re able to maintain.


	2. Law | Invisible chains

Law tells himself he doesn’t care. Law tells himself it doesn’t affect him, in any way. That Strawhat’s pain is his own, and his own alone.

Trees collapse, one after the other, deafening sounds disturbing the usual quietness of Amazon Lily. Louder than all—Luffy’s screams. Gut-wrenching sobs, shouts of a hollowed soul.

Law forces air out of his lungs.

They don’t stop. They don’t, and it churns the surgeon’s stomach for reasons he doesn’t want to think about. Strawhat is going to tear his stitches apart—the deadly wounds are going to open. As a surgeon, it should be his only concern but Law’s knuckles have gone white from his tight grip around the handle of his sword as his mind takes him back to places and times filling his nights with dread. 

Luffy’s still shouting, and Law’s very own demons are slowly coming back to life.

“Captain?” 

He screws his eyes shut, hard. It’s there. It’s always there, following him around, heavy in his chest, weighing on his shoulders.

A city devoured by flames. Nightmares full of white and pink. Guilt, so much guilt—the memories of a smile upon tainted lips. The horrors of years and years in shackles, fighting for dignity, fighting for survival. Trapped. Bound. Feral, wounded animal. Marked. The sizzling madness behind Donquixote’s glasses. Silence. Hands. Strings. Everywhere, everywhere, always. His body not his own, his mind full of poison. Hands hands hands. Fearing water, fearing ghosts, fearing darkness. Feather coats. Hands, so many hands.

Deep inside the woods another tree cracks and collapses. Law wasn’t allowed to scream.

“Captain, hey, are you okay?” 

Luffy’s pain is his own, but Law feels it ripping his heart at the very seams.

His grip around Kikoku is tight enough to disturb the demon blade’s resting state. The sheath trembles ever so slightly. Bepo’s face is scrunched in worry when Law’s gaze focuses back to reality, burying Flevance and the Donquixote’s palace in the back of his mind.

His voice isn’t his when he speaks up, distant and cold. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

The Polar Tang dives back into dark waters. Law feels like throwing up.


	3. Kidd/Law

Kidd liked simple things. Straightforward stuff, bold minds. 

Kidd liked simple things, and liked to believe he was simple enough of a guy. 

Marines, punch them in the face. Pirates, punch them twice as hard. Guys looking at him funny, bash their faces in. Pretty girls side-eying him, take them to his bedroom. He had his crew, good men, strong men, and they sailed the blue sea, killed and looted, did their pirate thing. Simple.

No bullshit, no excuses, no problems. Kidd liked simple. 

Then he met Trafalgar, and things weren’t so simple anymore.


	4. Zoro/Perona | Ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bruh this shits been taking DUST in my drafts i dont even remember half of it but i know it used to make me sad so whatever ;') have my one of my fav ships ever in one piece, xoxo

Perona wasn't lonely.

Well, it'd be a bit of a stretch to say so. White ghosts swirled around her, here and there, everywhere around the big black castle. And a mute, lone Shichibukai hid somewhere in the maze of stone walls, too.

But—sometimes, just sometimes—

She sat alone in a room of cold grey bricks and immaterial beings, hugging her knees to her chest.

Wondering, always wondering. Thinking.

Grandline was unforgiving, she knew that much. Before Moria, before lifeless bodies crawling from dirt and Kumashi's ever loose stitches, life wasn't much different. She'd fled home young and scared with nothing but a hollow heart and a stuffed bear to escape the darkness of a basement full of roaches. She'd hidden wherever she could, survived on scrapes and rotten things, talked to ghosts in the dead of the night when she had no one else. 

She wasn't lonely, but she knew about loneliness.

And sometimes it got to her, too.

She remembered a lot, thought about the past. About how Moria, however cruel and petulant, had found a mute girl with big dead eyes and showed her the strangest kind of love in a island filled with monsters and nightmares. About the moving trees, whispering walls and stiched-up blondes with dead eyes.

Perona remembered—of course she did. Because, no matter how odd, things were, for the most part alright for a while.

She was alright.

Still, they were pirates on a wide great sea—other pirates came and brought chaos with them and now it was just her in an empty castle singing to ghosts.

 

-

It wasn't like she hated the Strawhats. Fair was only fair even though such thing didn't exist in a pirate's world. 

Perona didn't believe in destiny either, but seeing him here—in the big nothingness of Kuraigana—

It stirred something bad and poisonous inside her.

Then she saw him kneel in front of the man he swore to defeat and found herself wondeing about the kind of ghosts that'd keep a man like Rorona Zoro awake at night.

 

-

As it turned out—Perona didn't like any of them.

-

 

“—don't.” 

Perona ground her teeth, losing patience. She didn't flinch when the swordsman's stone-cold eyes glared at her, didn't remove either of her hands either. 

Tending the wounded. What a joke. 

Most times, he got up before she could change his bandages to cleaner ones. He didn't thank her, never did. Came bloody and beaten to her room, mute as the dead. With time, Perona learnt that it was a delicate process—in between the second he stepped inside her room and the one he crawled back into his own skin, he was malleable and pliant under hands. A sour taste in the back of her mouth, she'd rush to help the man who wrecked her home and stole everything away from her. Then the ghosts would come back, and Roronoa'd leave.

But today—he stayed.

“Stop that,” he growled, fingers twitching slightly. 

There were cuts and bruises of different shades along his jaw, but at times, they weren't the worst of it. New ones were added after every fight and his skin, day after day, turned a little more into a mess of scars whispering war stories. 

Perona looked up through her bangs and bared her teeth. " _You_ stop that, asshole."

She was trying to help, wasn't she? Wasn't she? Sometimes, Perona wondered—why would she ever do that? Why would she kneel by his sides and tend to his wounds, why would she let him bring nightmares in her bed? 

And—she'd take one look at him, and she'd get the answer. Perona knew. Of course she knew.

Perona looked at him the way she'd look at wrecked ships after lost battles, when they were broken and sinking, some men still alive but making no move to jump abroad, to save themselves. 

Zoro, hell, he hated being stared at but Perona's eyes—big empty pools of black—were comforting in the worst ways.

His shoulders slumped. 

His entire body deflated, lungs emptying until there was nothing left to breathe out. Letting go was hard as shit, but Zoro tried. For his captain's sake, for the crew's, hell, even, maybe, for the girl with haunted eyes who'd stayed by his side and patched him up as much as she could ever since he'd arrived on this godforsaken island. Comfort. Grandline offered none, ever, but it didn't stop empty hearts from hoping.

“I need to get stronger,” he said to one—a mantra, old, used words he had engraved into the very core of his being. "I have to."

Perona gave a humorless laugh. “You have no idea, do you?”

It goy her a sharp glare, and for a second, she thought the brute would act on impulse, but he didn't—remained detached and pliable under her hands, none of the usual fury in those eyes. Zoro didn't flinch when she cleansed, saw back some gaping wounds. So used to gore, to blood and horror and broken bones that this couldn't ever compare. 

She stopped, hand falling back into her lap. "You're a wreck. You're sinking. Don't you ever get tired of this? Don't ever stop to breathe? You're sinking, pirate."

Zoro glanced away. 

Thriller Bark had left its toll on everyone, but she knew from midnight talks under cold bedsheets what'd happened. Luffy's pain had been unbearable, and now it was his own, and he couldn't even bring himself to argue.

Wrecked, battered, sinking. How could he get stronger—save his crew—with aching, broken bones? 

Perona waited for an answer which never came. She was used to it. Ghosts weren't much talkative either, and with time you learnt to enjoy silence.

She stood up, only to sit on the bed by Zoro's side. They didn't talk, for a while. The room was cold and dark. Sunlight barely filtered through the thick white mist of Kuraigana. It was fine by them. 

Perona tipped her head to the side, resting it against Zoro's shoulder, breathing out.

Pirates on a wide blue sea—maybe Zoro, and the whole lot of loud, hopeful Strawhats got a real bad taste of its true nature this time around.

“Damaged ships get replaced,” she said, visions of fire and cannonballs behind her eyelids. “Promise me you won’t.” 

It wasn't much, hardly a fleeting sensation. Perona felt it nonetheless, Zoro recoiling, the whole body-shudder rippling through him; a hurricane hitting in waves.

Promises never meant anything out there, not when most didn't live to see another day and corpses piled in the bottom of the ocean. But it wasn't them—Grandline hadn't got to them yet, and she'd make sure, no matter how many times Zoro came back broken that it wouldn't be them, ever.

A slight pressure against her palm. Zoro's breath evened out, slowly. They didn't move for a long while; even if no voiced answer came, she understood. It was fine. It'd be fine.

Many nights later, Perona’d remember the ghost touch of lips against her forehead and the way Zoro’s voice had sounded before he left again.


	5. Kidd/Law | Skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU. law's still in the family and kidd is just another pirate dreaming big and loving hard

Kidd sees it happen one too many times not to catch it on. 

It happens naturally. Law slipping from one skin to another, changing realities in a heartbeat. Overtime, Kidd’s learnt it’s an unconscious act: only a matter of body taking over mind, instincts kicking in before he can even think about it. It just happens, and when it does, his eyes get clouded with everything weighing down on his shoulders on a daily basis.

He knows he can’t hold such things against him. Water’s not exactly wet nor is the sky blue, but some things are just the way they are and Kidd has already taken his oath three years ago on a rainy night.

"Who’s that?" 

Law's tall. Taller than most, but under Vergo's gaze, he shrinks down hard and fast. It’s fascinating, how quick everything falls down: Kidd watches the first cracks of the façade, how it only takes two words and a single glance from the former Marine to have Law's whole act crumbling to pieces. The air shifts-- particles bouncing, colliding, bursting under the sheer pressure of Vergo’s presence on the ship.

Vergo's face is a stoic mask, cold and detached, war stories hiding behind the grey of his glasses. Law never talks about his Family. Law mentions them as he’d mention tomorrow’s weather-- vaguely, just enough information to get by if needed. The man standing in front of them unannounced is just another stranger who’s shaped and made Law into what he is today, a name ringing distant bells in Kidd's mind.

Somehow, he understands why now.

When Law finds his voice at last, he speaks with a stone-cold edge to it, the hardness of his face matching Vergo's. "No one. Let’s go."

He stands, starts walking towards the Ark back wing-- doesn’t once look behind. Kidd laughs quietly to himself. He’s not mad. He can’t be. Instead, he gives in to the comedy of the whole thing, how his world is wrong and colorless without Law when he doesn’t exist in Law’s-- how fast he has made peace with that.


End file.
